Canadian logistics firm J.D. Smith and Sons has completed a six-month trial of radio frequency identification technology to track the loading, shipping and receipt of bagged pet food for a pet-product retailer. The company is now offering an RFID-based service to track its customers' goods, based on reads of RFID tags embedded in J.D. Smith's pallets.

Accellos Inc. has developed version 6.4 of AccellosOne Warehouse, the vendor's warehouse-management system software.

The cloud is a viable model for a WMS, says Chuck Fuerst, director of product strategy at HighJump Software. Other things to consider are performance-based applications, labor management solutions, voice technology - and underestimating the cost of a WMS upgrade.

Swissport International Ltd., a provider of air-cargo handling services, is now offering its track-and-trace capability for cargo customers and their partners via mobile phones.

The National Retail Federation has urged the Federal Trade Commission to move cautiously in establishing regulations for mobile payments, and said any rules that are adopted should parallel those for the underlying form of payment and not be specific to the technology.

Vocollect, a provider of voice technology for mobile workers, has introduced Vocollect VoiceExpress for distribution center and warehouse operators.

The Continental Tire factory in Sarreguemines, France, has increased its production of tires from 33,000 tires per day to 38,000, thanks to a real-time location system it installed in September 2011 to track tire components. The RTLS has also helped the company reduce wastage of tire components, known as "semi products," by 20 percent.

Korea's largest pharmaceutical company, Hanmi Pharmaceutical, is testing a radio frequency identification system at five of its wholesalers, as well as at five retailer locations throughout the nation.

Software AG has acquired my-Channels, a London, England-based provider of low-latency messaging software. The deal will enable customers of Software AG to integrate their software applications and mobile devices through a single messaging layer.